For Christmas I made my sister a "Death Note" cookbook filled with treats her favourite character, L, would eat. I wanted to be creative with the wrapping and I figured what better way to do so than to send the Death Note in a confidential package for L!

I used materials I found around my house to make the package:I had no brown wrapping paper, so I found some old brown paper bags to do the trick!

I wrapped the notebook like any other gift and finished off the wrapping by tying some spare yarn around the package and stenciling L's logo with black paint and a foam brush on the front like so:

My sister fell in love with the wrapping and loved the gift before she even opened it. She was very careful not to rip the packaging and actually kept the paper too.

I'm pretty much set on a name but I'm afraid of a possible Legal issue.

I'll be selling clothing, more spacifically Japanese fashion, amigurumi, and other crocheted items.

I want to name my shop "Neo Visualism". It sounds perfect for what I'm going to be making and it has meaning behind the name as well. The problem is, there is a musician that has a song by that same name. There is a difference though. He spells is "Neo Visualizm" and I spell it "Neo Visualism"

It's an awesome CosPlay but if you want to be different then an original character would be the only thing I can think of that's out of the norm now. Web-manga characters, J-rockers, cartoon/anime characters, all sorts of other things are very widely done.

I wasn't really striving to be different. I'm just a jrock junkie who figured I'd show my love and appreciation for a band through cosplay

Back in May I attended Anime North, an Anime Convention in Toronto, ON. I chose to cosplay a Jrocker instead of an Anime or Video Game character like Everyone else. That J rocker, was Kaoru, Guitarist of Dir en Grey.

In all, I made;- the Jacket, made out of Vinyl and properly lined, with the help of a friend and her serger- the multiple "patches" on the coat and pants. They we're all hand painted and torn- The rising sun on the back as well as the two pieces that extend onto the shoulder- the large spikes on the shoulder

The wig was purchased from cosworx.comThe spikes were found on studsandspikes.comThe pants I found at Value Village.

In all this costume took about a month and a half to completely finish. I actually didn't finish until the first day of the convention .

My blood, sweat, and tears literally went into this costume, but did it ever pay off! Alot of people reconized me at the convention, or atleast more than I thought would. Someone 6 or 7 floors up in the Renaissance hotel saw me standing outside and shouted "Kaoru!" from the hotel room window and waved crazily

We'll here is it!

and the Original:

For bigger pictures of the costume check out my costume page on cosplay.com